First off, this is not me downplaying that cis dudes also get sexually harrassed or saying that they have an easy time being believed, this is me being mad at the downplaying of sexual harrassment of women.
Do people think women can just point at someone and say “They sexually harrassed me!” No, hell no. Women have been working hard to get people to take them seriously about sexual harrassment forever. Look at how people reacted to Monica Lewinsky. She came forward and pretty much became a laughing stock and a meme. even today, look what happened with Biden and Tara Reade. People roll their eyes at #Metoo and use it as a punchline. “He got #MeToo’d” is a saying people use to insinute women using false sexual harrassment allegations to get men fired. Women who come forward about being harrassed or assaulted routinely get death threats. Victims so often aren’t believed or are harrassed more upon coming forward that often they just don’t bother. It’s been a huge struggle to even get to the point where #metoo could actually get some predators convicted.
I understand and hate that men have a hard time being believed too, but the idea that women somehow don’t also have this problem, or somehow have it easier, sickens me.
Cishet dude here.
When I was sexually assaulted about 20 years ago by my ex I never even told anyone because what was even the point. “Oh, the girl who is out of your league forced herself on you? Yeah right.” That’s basically how I imagined it going down. I can’t tell you if men are believed more or less than women. I just know in my personal experience it felt so pointless to even tell a friend that I didn’t bother.
Oh, and here’s a kicker on that. I told exactly two women about my assault a few years ago. So imagine my surprise when they were talking about that “man vs bear” choice that was popular on social media when they told me and agreed with each other, “you don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never been assaulted or harassed.” The only two women I ever told. Didn’t even remember me telling them about one of the worst things a women ever did to me. That’s how unimportant it is to people. And I don’t even know what was worse about that. The fact that they forgot my assault or the fact that they know I’m such a plain looking dude that I haven’t ever had a woman harass me because I’ve never had a woman who wasn’t my partner ever even compliment me sexually or romantically, much less sexually harass me.
It all hurts and is frustrating. That’s my experience.
Jesus, that’s horrible. I’m sorry.
It’s like people just shut down and don’t want to know. But to memory hole it and then be like “Pfft you wouldn’t know.” That’s infuriating. Like, that’s straight up gaslighting.
I really hope my post doesn’t contribute to that bullshit. It’s not meant to minimise what men go through at all. I believe you, and it’s disgusting that you haven’t been believed.
No, not at all. I appreciate the understanding. I’m also not commenting at all on whether or not “men have it worse” or whatever other nonsense the person said to you. I have no idea what the actual rates are of sexual harassment is for men or if they are ignored more or less than women on a systemic level. I have absolutely no data on that. I just know what it was like for me and the very few times I’ve heard stories from other men in this regard of assault and harassment the stories are similar.
I do think there is another issue with men is that some of us are socialized to not even recognize harassment and/or assault when it happens to us. I’ve seen men talk about these kinds of experiences online and other men express how that wasn’t assault because “that happened to me.” Like, my brother, you are in denial!
This always seemed to me like men finding out how hard women have it. “Nobody believed that one guy, but aren’t they supposed to when this happens? I guess nobody believes men!”
Hahaha nope…that’s just what happens to women, which contradicts your incel fantasies about falseremoved accusations. It turns out we live in a world where predators are allowed free reign to do whatever they want with zero consequences becauseremoved culture is massively ingrained into everything.
even if it were true that ‘cis dudes are less believed’ (which i’m pretty fucking sure it isn’t), it would still be the fault of the patriarchy, not feminism or women, for enforcing those toxic standards for men
It’s just a slap in the face cis men haven’t had as often as women have suffered. I don’t think that men are believed less often, what with the physical power imbalance and men’s higher positions in work mean it’s happening to women more often.
But when men do get harassed they are surprised by the thing women already know: that power “disbelieves” the powerless when it is convenient to do so.
Any sexual harassment claim at work is telling the powerful that they must do something inconvenient, and so it behooves those in power to disbelieve accusers as a rule.
It’s not that people don’t believe men when they come forward, it’s that people believe it’s physically impossible for such an act to happen to a man and that it’s impossible for men to be victims, because men “always want it”. It’s a different struggle to what women face. It’s not harder or easier, it’s different, because traditional/patriarchical gender roles are different between men and women. Anyone trying to make a “competition” out of this, or say that women have it easier, is sick in the head as you said.
She came forward
She didn’t even come forward, she told her friend who taped the conversations
Tripp reported their conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who advised her to secretly record them, which Tripp began doing in September 1997.
Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and bring them to the attention of people working on the Paula Jones case. In the fall of 1997, Goldberg began speaking to reporters (including Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.
In the Paula Jones case, Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit that denied any physical relationship with Clinton. In January 1998, she attempted to persuade Tripp to commit perjury in the Jones case.
Instead, Tripp gave the tapes to Starr, who was investigating the Whitewater controversy and other matters. Starr was now armed with evidence of Lewinsky’s admission of a physical relationship with Clinton, and he broadened the investigation to include Lewinsky and her possible perjury in the Jones case.
Fucking sucks comrade. At the end of the day, I think the fact is that our society just doesn’t care about sexual assault when it isn’t a certain imagined type (ie a woman being jumped at night). Anything else just doesn’t happen in people’s minds, or even worse, when it does it’s a punchline.
